Volume 192 - Issue 4
General Practice Super Clinics — how will they meet their educational objectives?
Author: Timothy P Usherwood
Med J Aust 2010; 192 (4): 240. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03496.x
Published online: 15 February 2010
Published online: 15 February 2010
To the Editor: The Australian Medical Council recognises the importance of clinical experience in general practice for all medical students.1 In their recent article in the Journal, Vickery and colleagues identify three significant barriers to clinical teaching by Australian general practitioners: time, space and opportunity costs.2 They suggest that General Practice Super Clinics will be well placed to address the issue of space and, with additional funding, could also overcome the barriers of opportunity cost and lack of time. The latter claim may be true, but we need to invest in all teaching practices, not just in Super Clinics.
The Australian Government is currently committed to establishing 35 Super Clinics. Even if more are set up in the future, it is difficult to see how they will ever make a major contribution to providing general practice placements for the 3000-plus students entering medical training each year.
There are many high-quality general practices across Australia that have been committed to teaching for years. For this, they receive a $200 Practice Incentives Program payment per student per day. This amount has not increased since 2004, and is widely seen as insufficient to meet practice teaching costs. There is an urgent need to increase the sessional payment for teaching to an amount that realistically reflects the time and opportunity costs to practices.
In addition, a national fund for capital investment in teaching practices would help address the third barrier that Vickery et al identify: many excellent practices are unable to provide student placements due to lack of space.
Competing interests
I am responsible for medical student general practice placements at Sydney Medical School.
References
- Australian Medical Council. Assessment and accreditation of medical schools: standards and procedures, 2009. Canberra: AMC, 2009.
- Vickery AW, Dodd J, Emery JD. General Practice Super Clinics — how will they meet their educational objectives? Med J Aust 2009; 191: 393-395. 0_CBBIBFJE
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